D. E. Larsen, DVM

“Company D, Private Drake speaking, can I help you,” Bill answered the phone on a snowy Christmas Eve in 1965. Bill and I were pulling CQ duty for Company D, a duty company for troops waiting for school at Fort Devens.

We were a couple of lucky ones; we were permanent CQs. We were given private squad rooms in the old World War Two barracks that were housing an overload of troops in the big build-up of Vietnam forces. We worked in 24 hours shifts, with 48 hours off.

“Yes, I know a couple of guys who would be interested,” Bill said.

“What are you getting us into now,” I asked? I was not expecting an answer, but Bill was always quick to volunteer my services.

“We can meet you at Battalion Headquarters by 8:15. We don’t get relieved until 8:00, but we should be able to make that schedule.”

Bill hung up the phone and looked at me with a big smile on his face.

“We have a Christmas dinner to go to tomorrow,” Bill said. “We have to be in Class A uniform and meet the Battalion CQ at Headquarters by 8:15.”

“Where are we going,” I asked?

“Does it matter? It is going to be better than eating Christmas dinner at Con 4 and sleeping for most of the day.”

At 6:00 in the morning, Bill and I took turns going to the barracks, showering and changing into our Class A uniform. When we were relieved by the next CQ crew, we walked through the snow the half a dozen blocks to Battalion Headquarters.

I imagined that we looked somewhat like Mutt and Jeff. Bill was 6′ 4″ and had a heavy black shadow on his face even though he had shaved a couple of hours before. And I was trying to match his stride, and I had to stretch to measure 5′ 8″.

The Battalion CQ was a Specialist 4, who had been in the Army for several years. He was waiting at the doorstep and fell in with us.

“We meet them at the main gate in 15 minutes,” Stan said.

Bill and I were mismatched on height, but we were both in good shape and trim. Stan was taller than me and quite well rounded.

“The main gate is over a mile,” Bill said as he lengthens his stride. I was used to matching his long stride, Stan sort of looked like a young kid who had to take four steps and then run four steps to keep pace.

By the time we reached the main gate, the snow was probably close to 4 inches deep. Mr. Terhune was waiting across the street in his VW van. He was with a couple of preteen boys. Getting into the warm van was a welcome relief.

We drove to their house in Groton, some 4 miles distant. The Terhune’s had 4 kids. The oldest was their daughter, who was a freshman in high school, and 3 younger boys. We had dinner, which Bill jumped right into the kitchen to help prepare. Then we spent the afternoon talking and drinking more than a little wine. 

Having just pulled 24 hours of duty, a full day of eating, and topped off with ample wine, I was asleep before my head hit the pillow that night. But it was Christmas to remember, and the Terhune’s remained friends and a place to escape to for the entire year we were at Devens.

Christmas in Korea was a different event but just as memorable. I arrived in Korea in the middle of September 1966, and I was well adjusted to the country by Christmas. Stationed South of Seoul, at Camp Humphreys, I spent a lot of my free time at the orphanage that we supported in An Song.

A group of us spent Christmas Eve at the orphanage. Following dinner, the group of elementary kids continued my lessons in Korean. The little girls were very serious about this instruction. They would frown when the boys were hysterical over my pronunciation of even the simplest words.

We did a Santa for the kids with toys purchased by the guys at the 177th. The kids all went to midnight mass, and so it late when they got to bed. 

On Christmas morning, we loaded everyone up and took them to Camp Humphreys for Christmas dinner with the entire company. Before dinner, all the staff and the older kids had the opportunity to take showers in the barracks. That was probably the best present we could give them. Then dinner in mess hall and entertainment in the club. All the kids were well worn out when we loaded them onto the trucks for the trip home.

The next morning the young kids were hanging all over me. It was apparent the kids didn’t want us to go. The staff was still in a state of euphoria from their day at the company compound. But we loaded up in the trucks for the drive back to the company. I opened the window and shouted goodbye, in Korean, to the kids.

“Annyeong,” I said. The boys almost rolled on the ground, but the girls laughed and waved.

 The drive back to base seemed longer than usual as we rolled down a dusty dirt road lined with dry rice paddies. My mind did drift back home with only a twinge of homesickness.

My experience in Germany was different still. I arrived in Germany in the middle of December 1967. Even though I had friends from Fort Devens, I really had no time to settle into an off duty routine before Christmas. My first Christmas in Germany was spent on the base at Rothwesten. Christmas dinner at the mess hall was well done and accompanied by some German carolers. The evening I spent at the NCO club, again filled with entertainment. It was less than ideal, but it was a pretty good day.

Christmas in 1968 found me in Schöningen, a small village on the East German border. I was stationed at Wobeck, a significant border listening post with about 70 of us stationed there. Christmas here was super. The town went all out on their decorations and festivities. There was a Christmas spirit everywhere. 

We had a major Christmas party at the ‘Swing Club’ in the Banhof Hotel. The club was not supposed to make a profit, so it had to give away a lot of booze to make sure the books came out even for the year.  Needless to say, there were a few drunk GIs.

A couple of us were invited to Christmas dinner at Howey and Holley’s house. Wives were a recent addition at Schöningen. Before this time, only men without dependants were stationed there. Holley was the best cook that I had seen since my mother. Howey was very drunk at the end of the party, and we had to help Holley get him into the car.

They lived in Wolsdorf, a little village a few miles out of Schöningen. They had an upstairs apartment in a new house, still finishing its construction. It was built on a hillside, and there were three stories with a high porch to the entry on the middle level. The steps and porch were new and not completely finished. There was no railing on the steps or porch.

When we arrived at 1:00 for dinner, Holley was slow to answer the door. She looked like she had was running on empty.

“Are you okay,” I asked? “You look like you have been cooking all night.

“I feel like it. We had quite a time last night,” Holley said. “And my night was just starting when we left.”

“You know, we can find a place to eat in town,” I said. “You don’t have to wear yourself out to feed us.”

“I should have had you guys help me get Howey home last night,” Holley said. “Let me tell you the story.”

“When we got to the house, it was not too hard for me to get him out of the car. And I sort of kept him against the wall as we struggled up the steps to the porch. We made it up here with no problem. I stood Howey up on the porch, turned around, and unlocked the front door. When I turned back around, he was gone. There he was, ten feet below, spread eagle in the snow and mud.”

“Is he okay,” Schniedewind asked? “That is a long way to fall.”

“He was too drunk to get hurt. But that was just the start of it. I had to get him up out of the snow and mud, back up the stairs, and then up the stairs to the apartment.”

“It looks like you made it,” I said. 

“Yes, I made, but there was a trail of snow and mud all the way. There was mud on the wall coming up the stairs. You know how the Germans are. They would kick us out of here for such a mess. So there I am, in the middle of the night, mopping the porch and washing the wall. It seemed like I no more than finished, and it was time to get the turkey into the oven. It was certainly a Christmas Eve that I won’t forget in a long time.”

About this time, Howey makes his entrance from the bedroom. He was fresh out of the shower but still feeling the effects of the party. We greeted him. Holley didn’t have much to say to him.

The dinner was excellent, as was expected from a cook like Holley. But the tension between the couple put a little chill in the air. Schniedewind and I made a pretty quick exit following dinner.

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I hurried along Berlin Road as the last of the daylight was fading into twilight. Hank had an old horse down with colic. I always dreaded colic calls. Many were simple fixes, but there was no place close to send them for abdominal surgery if it was a complex colic. Few clients would be willing to take their horse six or seven hundred miles for surgery.

I slowed as I approached Hank’s place. The old workhorse was down in the front yard. I could see several guys holding the horse to keep him from rolling. That was my instruction to Hank when I took the call. Often, a simple colic became a fatal colic when the horse would roll and twist a gut.

“Good evening, Doc,” Hank said as I stepped out of the truck. “I’m sorry for calling you this evening. Old Bob has been getting worse for the last few hours. I could tell something wasn’t quite right with him earlier today, but the last few hours have been pretty rough. After talking with you, I got these guys to help hold him down.”

“Don’t worry about having called me, Hank. If you hadn’t called now, you would have called by midnight, and things would have been far worse then.”

“Well, thanks for coming,” Hank said. “We moved him out front here so you would have a little light. It doesn’t look like we will be done before dark.”

I look Old Bob over. For a horse with colic who was down, he looked pretty good. His pulse was a little fast, and his gut sounds were slowed, but otherwise, he looked pretty good.

“Do you think he will stand for us?” I asked.

“Yes, he has been up and down for the last couple of hours. After talking with you, I just didn’t want him to lie down and roll before we could get him under control.”

The guys got up, I think they were a little relieved, and I slapped Old Bob on the butt, and he jumped right up.

“If you guys hold him tight, and maybe one of you lean against his ribs on each side, I will do a little rectal exam.”

I pulled on a plastic sleeve and lubed it well. Then, standing on his right side, I held his tail out of the way, and I eased my left hand and arm into Bob’s rectum. He did not object. I advanced my arm and started to sweep the floor of his pelvis and posterior abdomen.

Bob’s pelvic urethra bounced with a massive spasm when I touched it. The urethra was full and expanded. That was a most unusual finding. I advanced my arm further, and Bob’s distended bladder filled the posterior abdomen.

“I am not sure Old Bob has been peeing,” I said. “Have you seen him pass in urine today?”

“To be honest with you, Doc, I don’t spend a lot of time watching the old guy pee,” Hank said. “Now that I think about it, I did see him all stretched out like he was trying to pee earlier this afternoon.”

“I think his urethra is obstructed,” I said as I removed my arm. I cleaned up Bob’s rectum and let his tail fall. “It’ll take me a few minutes to hopefully find my urethral catheter. I hope it is in the truck.”

I had to dig deep into the back of the vet box. The call for using a stud catheter does not occur often. I had debated about even buying one when I did my equipment order. But after some digging, I did find it, and the sterile pouch it was in was still intact.

“Lean a little harder, guys,” I said. “There is nothing we are going to do to this guy from here on out that he’s going to find pleasant.”

Old Bob was a good old horse, but when I started to try to get a hold of his penis and pull it out, he was not very cooperative. After struggling for a minute or two, I decided to do it the easy way.

“Okay, Bob, you have earned a little dose of Rompun. Rompun was a popular tranquilizer, and it also provided some pain relief. In most cases, it would allow bulls and horses to drop the penis out of the prepuce.

After a dose of Rompun, Old Bob’s head started to hang, and then, as if on cue, he dropped his penis out of the prepuce.

I passed the catheter up his urethra, and it came to a dead stop. I pulled it out and measured the distance on the side of Bob. The obstruction was just after the urethra turned out of the pelvic cavity and headed down toward his prepuce.

“I don’t know what it is, but I need to do a little surgery. If it’s a stone, we can maybe remove it. We can at least open his urethra and empty his bladder. And just doing that is going to make him feel a whole lot better.”

I clipped and prepped a surgery site over Bob’s urethra and a spot above his tail’s base for an epidural injection of lidocaine. Bob was still well tranquilized from the Rompun injection. I injected six ccs of lidocaine into his epidural space. After a few minutes, I checked that it had adequately numbed the surgery site.

The light was poor, but finding the urethra was a snap. I incised the skin over his urethra and quickly dissected down to the surface of the urethra. Incising the urethra yielded a gush of urine. I passed the stud catheter into the bladder and waited as the urine drained.

Then I enlarged the incision a little and inserted my gloved finger. There, immediately below my incision, I palpated a large stone. The stone was nearly two inches wide and wedged tightly in the descending urethra.

“Okay, Hank, I can feel a large stone right here,” I said as I inserted my finger and bounced it on the top of the stone. “I can remove it, I am sure. But I think it would be best to wait until morning when the light is better.”

“Is he going to be okay until then?” Hank asked.

“He will be fine,” I said. “I am going to leave this incision open, and he will pee out of this incision. I will put his tail in a plastic sleeve to protect it. I will give him a dose of antibiotics tonight. 

It will take another hour before the tranquilizer wears off. But you can put him in a stall or in a pasture, and I will be back here about nine in the morning.”

“These guys are going to be at work. Are you going to need any help?”

“This old guy is a pretty good horse. I think I will be fine,” I said.

***

Bob was at the feed rack eating when I returned in the morning. He sort of shook his head at me when I approached the fence. I wondered if he was giving me credit for making him feel better. I doubt it.

We pulled Bob out of his stall and tied him to the fence. I removed the plastic sleeve from his tail and then put a wrap on it to keep it out of the way. I prepped the incision and the epidural spot and repeated the epidural. Bob was not bothered by any of it.

With my finger, I palpated the stone. It had not moved overnight.

I extended the incision a bit and pushed on the bottom of the stone through his tissues. It popped out of the incision, and I caught it in mid-air.

“That was pretty easy,” Hank said. “Can I have that stone for a mantlepiece?”

This was an impressive stone. It was almost heart-shaped, and two inches across at the top, and nearly an inch thick. Smooth and light brown, it was most likely a struvite stone.

“Sure, you can have it. You probably should rinse it well before you set it out for viewing. Most of the time, these result from an infection in the bladder. We are going to put Bob on some antibiotics for a week or so, and I will check him in a couple of weeks when I take the stitches out.”

I passed the catheter into Bob’s bladder and then down the urethra until it came out in the prepuce. Just to make sure things were open in both directions. 

I closed the urethra carefully and then loosely closed the tissues over the urethra. Leaving a small opening at the bottom end of the incision to allow for drainage. Then I removed the tail wrap and gave another dose of Polyflex. I fixed Hank up with injections for the next week. 

“I want you to look at this incision every day. If there is a small amount of drainage, that is okay. But if there is a lot of swelling or a lot of drainage, I want to hear from you. I’ll be back in two weeks.”

***

On recheck, Old Bob was well healed and acted like there had never been a problem. I removed his sutures, and it didn’t bother him at all. He was the only horse I ever treated with a urinary tract obstruction.

Photo by Free Nature Stock from Pexels

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Today was a late spring day with mostly blue sky but some heavy dark clouds. Walt was waiting when Ruth and I pulled into his barnyard. Ruth was short with dark hair. She had worked for me for a couple of years and although not a farm girl she really enjoyed the farms we visited. Walt’s farm had offered a variety we didn’t often see with Draft horses along with the cattle.

Walt greeted us with his beaming smile and an outstretched hand. His handshake was firm and sincere. I knew these men judged the men they met by their handshake, something I didn’t learn in school, but I had learned long ago growing up around men who earned their living working with their hands.

The little steer calf was standing in the loafing shed twitching his tail and stomping his hind feet. When I moved a little closer, he pressed against his mother’s hind leg. Mamma shook her head at me and moved into the corner of the loafing shed. 

“He is pretty uncomfortable,” I said to Walt. “How did you recognize him out in the pasture?”

Walt was a tall, thin man with a broad smile on his face most of the time. Lean does not mean that he was not strong. Slim, wiry, and tough as nails, Walt could work most men into the ground. Walt had a team of draft horses, Belgiums, that he used to put up his hay in the field that was next to the highway. I am sure that many people would observe him and fail to realize how rare the spectacle was today. I always enjoyed watching the horses work and would often take the back road so I could stop and watch for a time.

“The little guy was not moving around at all,” Walt said, showing his obvious concern with a fading smile. “I notice him and his mamma standing over in the corner of the pasture, all by themselves. With all this stomping and tail twitching, I figured something must be wrong.”

“He is pretty young for a urinary stone, but this is what they act like early on in the course of things,” I said. “We don’t see this much around here, but it was common in Colorado where I went to school.”

Urinary stones in beef cattle in the Willamette Valley were uncommon, meaning that I would see a case once or maybe twice a year at the most. Often going several years between patients. 

It was surprising that Walt would recognize the stomping and tail twitching as enough of an issue to call me early. It demonstrated how some of these old farmers were so in touch with their animals that they knew when there was a significant problem.

“It is early yet, and he is uncomfortable because of his distended bladder. In a little while, one of two things will happen, either his bladder breaks or his urethra breaks. When that happens, the pain goes away, but the problem becomes much more difficult to fix. It is a good thing that you called early.”

The calf was easy to catch, and we tied his head and then ran the mamma cow outside. I was sure of my diagnosis but completed a quick exam. His temperature was normal, and his chest was normal. 

On the rectal exam, I laid my fingertip on his pelvic urethra. It was continually pulsating. This guy had a stone blocking his urethra for sure. 

I took a second rope and tied a loop in the middle of the bite of the rope. I slipped this loop over his neck with the knot lying between his front legs. The rope ends crossed in the middle of his back, ran down his sides, and came out between his hind legs. This was called a “flying W” and is a standard method to throw a cow. It was generally not used on a small calf, but we would have to tie him down for surgery.

I grabbed the two ends of the rope and pulled. The calf stiffened and fell on his side. We rolled him up on his back, flexed his hind legs, and tied each leg with the ropes in a manner that when he kicked, it would put more pressure on his back and add more restraint.

Once restrained, with me on my knees, I could palpate the length of his penis. Stones generally lodge at the point of the attachment of the retractor penis muscle in the sigmoid flexure of the penis. I grasped this portion of the penis with my left hand to stabilize it. With my right hand, I could easily palpate the stone.

“This is going to be easy,” I said to Walt. He was watching closely. Most of these guys had not watched a calf thrown so easily before.

“So far, you make it look easy,” Walt said.

We clipped and prepped the surgery site, and Ruth opened the surgery pack while I put on gloves. This was barnyard surgery at its best. There was fresh straw down, but the ground’s softness under my knees told me we were on top of a foot or more of straw and manure.

The surgery was brief, as I had promised. I injected the area with Lidocaine for local anesthesia, grasped the penis to stabilize it, palpated the stone, and made about a two-inch incision over the stone. I bluntly divided the tissues with a pair of forceps to expose the urethra with the bulge where the stone was located. 

Once this was exposed, I elevated the penis. I drove a scissors under the penis and out the other side to maintain the exposure and stable urethra and free up my left hand. I palpated the stone again, then carefully incised the urethra, feeling the stone’s grit as the scalpel pulled across it. I grabbed the stone and pulled it out of the urethra with forceps. I placed it on the surgery pack. I took a urinary catheter and ran it up the urethra toward the bladder. It was just long enough to reach the bladder. We relaxed as urine drained out of the catheter. 

I could imagine that the calf was feeling some relief at this point. When the urine stopped, I removed the catheter. I then ran it the other direction to ensure the rest of the urethra was open.

Now we had a decision to make, to close or not to close the incisions. I had the option of leaving the incisions open. I sort of favored this option because there may be more stones in the bladder, and they would have the chance of passing out the incision if it is left open. 

Barnyard surgery is not the best in the world, and closing the incision always gave the possibility of infection. And closing the urethra on such a small calf could lead to a narrow spot that could cause problems later. The only problem with leaving the incisions open was that urine would flow out of the incision for a week or so until there was enough healing to allow normal flow.

I was getting ready to discuss all this with Walt when the calf kicked. He got one hind leg free from the restraint. He kicked again, and the surgery pack went flying. The decision was made by the calf. I grabbed the scissors, releasing the penis to return to its normal position. Ruth started gathering instruments that were scattered through the straw. 

Walt was crawling across the straw on his hands and knees, concentrating on one spot. He ran his hand across the straw a couple of times. Then with a beaming smile raised his hand, he had found the stone.

“This is going on my mantle,” he said, still smiling. 

We let the calf up, sprayed for flies, and explained the urine flow issue to Walt. Things turned out okay, and I will never know how Walt could keep track of that stone in all the commotion.

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash